Exposing GitHub PAT during Docker build using GitHub Actions

[mattwarkentin]

Hi @jimhester,

I was wondering if you could suggest a best-practice for making sure remotes::install_github() has access to my GITHUB_PAT. The extra layer of complexity is that remotes::install_github() is called during a Docker image build. I thought that just defining the GITHUB_PAT as an environment variable within the Action would make it all work, but perhaps the PAT isn't inherited by the Docker build.

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v2
      - name: Build Docker Image
        env:
          GITHUB_PAT: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_PAT }}
        run: |
          docker build . --file Dockerfile --build-arg GPAT=${GITHUB_PAT} --tag name/image

Where the Dockerfile contains something like:

ARG GPAT
ENV GITHUB_PAT=${GPAT}
RUN R -e "remotes::install_github('r-lib/actions')"

[jimhester]

What you have looks to me like it should work, I don't know why it does not.

I would suggest you ask in other venues, this doesn't seem to have anything to do with the custom R actions.

e.g. either https://github.community/c/github-actions/41 or https://community.rstudio.com/ would be better avenues for this sort of question.

[nturaga]

@mattwarkentin Did you ever figure this issue out?

[mattwarkentin]

Umm, I'm not sure what ever came of this issue, really. Did you try the proposed solution in the original post?

[nturaga]

Umm, I'm not sure what ever came of this issue, really. Did you try the proposed solution in the original post?

Yes, it doesn't seem to work as Github actions isn't able to read the PAT for some reason.

[github-actions]

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